


leaving tomorrow (together)

by ienablu



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2697977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ienablu/pseuds/ienablu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lying inside the crook of the elbow, there's a clock counting down until the day that you die. The clock is one knuckle high, two knuckles wide, showcasing two numbers: years and months, or months and days, all the way down to seconds and milliseconds.</p><p>The number that first manifests is the one that counts you down to your death; numbers rarely downshift, unless you live near the Pacific or are a jaeger pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leaving tomorrow (together)

**Author's Note:**

> This came about as a combination of recently rereading Death Note, that one Nickelback music video, the countdown clock in the film, and the trope of soulmate clocks. This was also a bit of an experiment for me, in a few small regards.
> 
> I always welcome feedback, positive or negative, and would especially be grateful for feedback on this.

On August 13th, 2013, tens of thousands of counters downshift — counters that had been measuring years or months or days all shift down to hours, anywhere from 16:58 to 03:37.

It’s the largest mass downshift in America in over a decade, and it immediately makes national news. Speculation goes wild, anything from a natural disaster to a terrorist attack to an alien invasion.

And then Trespasser rises from the Pacific Ocean.

 

**

 

The call for Knifehead comes in at 1:59 in the morning.

Raleigh rolls out of bed, the initial rush of adrenaline making his movements jittery. He scans the deployment monitor and starts thumping the mattress along Yancy’s head. “Yancy, wake—”

“I’m up, I’m up.”

“Then get up,” Raleigh says, cuffing the side of Yancy’s head before bounding away to find a shirt. “Hear that? Biggest category three yet. We’re going to break the Gages’ record in less than—” 

“Hey, kid,” Yancy says.

Raleigh turns to him. “Yeah?”

Yancy gives him a wan grin. “Don’t get cocky.”

Raleigh laughs, and is smiling all the way to Bay 08.

“Good morning, Becket boys,” Tendo greets over the intercoms. “How are the numbers looking?”

“Same as usual,” Raleigh replies. His clock reads 02:11, years and months.

“Good to hear it, Becket boy.”

Yancy is more quiet than usual through the drop and towing to the launch.

It’s traditionally been Yancy’s line, but Tendo’s counting down and Yancy hasn’t said it yet, so Raleigh asks, “Ready to step into my head?”

Yancy cracks a smile. “After you.”

They both take a deep breath, and let the Drift rush over them. It’s the usual rush of childhood memories. Their mother making dinner. Their mother watching them clean their room. Their sister curled up reading. Them running through the snow. Their father coming home from work. Their mother picking them up from school. Them playing in the backyard.

A recent memory jars — Yancy waking up fifteen minutes before the call comes in. Yancy with a blinding pain in his arm. Yancy down from 2:11 to 44:06, 44:05, 44:04...

“Raleigh, you’re dropping out of alignment!”

 _It doesn’t matter,_ Yancy thinks. _Fifth notch on the belt, like you said. You and me, we can do this. Clocks shift and can shift back, we can do this._

“Raleigh?”

“Sorry,” Raleigh replies. “We’re good, we got this.”

They defeat Knifehead.

 _Fifth notch,_ Raleigh thinks.

“Kaiju signature rising—!”

 

**

 

It’s Dr. Lars Gottleib who came up with the idea to look at mass downshifts of coastal populations to predict kaiju attacks.

It’s his son, Dr. Hermann Gottleib, who comes up with the idea of looking at downshifts at jaeger pilots to predict kaiju battle outcomes.

 

**

 

Xichi Po and Hin Shen Lo’s clocks downshift in time with the Breach opening.

Stacker runs through his options. If he were to take Horizon Brave off combat, and send Crimson Typhoon out instead, it would not erase the outcome of a jaeger’s loss, only cause the Wei triplets to downshift and be killed in action.

The Wei triplets are three of the strongest jaeger pilots the PPDC has, and Crimson is one of the best jaegers the PPDC has.

Sending Horizon Brave out means the PPDC is going to lose two fine jaeger pilots; it means Stacker is going to lose two friends from the glory days.

But they are Mark-I pilots, and that means that they signed up to do whatever is necessary to win this war, as did he.

“Make it count,” is all Xichi says, as he and Hin Shen leave to suit up.

Stacker orders Crimson to cover Horizon.

Crimson makes it out.

Horizon does not.

Medical staff spend hours looking at the second-by-second vital recordings of Xichi and Hin Shen, analyzing Hin Shen’s narration as she fights. A small rush of adrenaline accompanies any shifting number, and for jaeger pilots it proves to be detrimental as each second ticks down. Increased startle reflexes, increased RABIT chasing, lower concentration, the list goes on.

It’s not until the last ninety seconds, when counter switches over and the miliseconds are counting down non-stop can pilots hit peak performance, or even surpass what they were once capable of.

It’s good information to have, but it doesn’t feel worth it.

 

**

 

They are still to Hong Kong when the Breach releases two kaiju.

Cheung, Hui and Jin have downshifted to 39:56.

Sasha and Aleksis have downshifted to 41:21.

Herc and Chuck have downshifted to 11:10.

The Weis and Kaidonovskies are counting down by minutes and seconds, the Hansens by hours and minutes.

Mako and Raleigh haven’t declared their numbers changing.

Stacker runs through his options. There aren’t many.

Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha are killed in action, and Striker Eureka is taken out of commission.

Stacker doesn’t want to deploy Danger, but it’s what is necessary. As Marshal of the PPDC, he needs to defend Hong Kong. As a father, he must trust his daughter.

They don’t declare a downshift before they deploy.

Dr. Gottlieb stands by his numbers, and has been proven right on numerous occasion. With no downshift from Mako, nor any reported mass downshift of Hong Kong, Stacker allows himself to hope that Dr. Gottlieb and his numbers are right once more.

 

**

 

Protocol has been put in place that all shifts of counters must be declared.

“Herc upshifted,” Tendo is telling him, a quiet awe to his voice. “He’s back to either days and hours, but Medical wants to keep him under observation, some are optimistic, think he may have even gone up to months.”

“And Chuck?”

Tendo’s smile fades. “No change. Still around ten hours. Dr. Gottlieb’s trying to see if anyone can track him down, he’s working himself up into a frenzy trying to figure out what it means that just Chuck has that counter.”

“Not just Chuck,” Stacker says.

The war clock has been reset, and so has Stacker’s own.

 

**

 

Stacker finds Chuck in Striker’s repair bay, eighteen levels up. His feet are over the ledge of the platform, and he’s staring distantly down at Striker’s elbow.

“I’ve listened to Gottlieb rave before,” Chuck says. “Numbers match his estimated models. ‘Nother Double coming up.”

“That is what his numbers hypothesize,” Stacker agrees. He unbuttons his jacket, and drapes it over a nearby railing. He sits down on Chuck’s right, popping the two cuff buttons as he does.

Chuck glares at Stacker, though it fades as Stacker folds his cuffs up past his elbow.

Their numbers read 9:46.

Chuck looks away, goes back to staring at Striker. His lips purse, his nostrils flare, and for a few moments he’s breathing heavily. He reaches over, his right hand clasping his clock as the minute flicks down. He takes a deep breath, eyes sliding closed, and sighs. “I quite like my life,” he says. It sounds hollow, empty. Defeated.

“All jaeger pilots, especially Mark-I jaeger pilots, who have shown health problems are sent to grief counseling. We are coached through it. Taught to accept the inevitability of our death.” Stacker stares down at his counter. 9:45. “I don’t want to die.”

Herc has gone through the same counseling, and through that, Chuck knows that Stacker made the admission that should never be made. Stacker understood the philosophy behind the counsellor’s wisdom, but at this point, there seems little purpose. He’s been thinking it for months now, and Chuck would discover it soon enough. Better he find this way, Stacker thinks. He feels better this way himself.

Chuck’s stare is considering. “How long did you have?”

“August, 2026. It would have been just after your twenty-third birthday.”

Tears gather in Chuck’s eyes, and his face scrunches up, and he looks away. “It wouldn’t’ve been much longer for me after.”

This, Stacker knows.

“I was going to spend that birthday celebrating, the week before, week after. And once I hit the final ninety minutes, I was just going to get Max, go to a park, and drink the rest of my time away.” Chuck wipes at his face with the palm of his hand. 

“I would have gone to beach just down from the Pan-Pacific Memorial Cemetery. Taken Tams’ ashes with me. Figure--” Stacker’s words stick in his throat. He had never told any counsellor his plans for his final days. He takes a deep breath, and continues, “I figured she would want to be there. I’d have a picture of Luna. A new print, not the worn copy I carry now.”

“And Mako?”

Stacker closes his eyes. “I never decided. Part of me wanted to ask her to be there with me. Part of me would not want to place that burden on her. I kept switching between the two. Even now, I keep debating.” He huffs. “I suppose it hardly matters at this point.”

Chuck just nods absently, and they sit together in silence.

Together, their clocks click down to 9:43.

9:42.

9:41.

 

**

 

Dr. Gottlieb’s numbers are right twice more.

Stacker and Chuck Drift together just fine, for the first hour and fifteen minutes.

Then their clocks shift from hours and minutes to minutes and seconds.

Stacker has seen the data, first from Xichi and Hin Shen, then from the Jessops and the Gages and on through the rest of the jaeger pilots of the PPDC. Only that knowledge was clinical, he learned it from an objective standpoint.

Now, Stacker feels the effects — feels the sharp jolt on his arm a split-second each second. Feels his concentration lapsing when all he needs to concentrate on is placing one foot in front of the other. Feels Chuck RABIT through Stacker’s memories of Horizon Brave and Tacit Ronin and Romeo Blue while Stacker RABITs through the lurking ghost of Scott Hansen. Stacker does his best to stay in the moment, stay in the now, ignore the pain, do what needs to be done, even as a part of him distantly wonders if Tams would have liked Chuck. Alarms sound as they both start dropping out of alignment, and after the fifth time, Chuck starts swearing each it happens.

Combat is worse, especially as Dr. Gottlieb is proven right once more, and a third kaiju rises from the Breach.

They are outnumbered.

Then the release for Striker’s nuclear bomb is disabled, and they are outmatched. 

“What can we do?” Chuck asks, a crack of despair in his voice, a deluge of it through the Drift.

The nerve endings in Stacker’s arm light up, and a clarity washes over him.

Ninety seconds, he knows.

“We can clear a path,” Stacker says. “For the lady.”

Chuck looks over, and nods.

Sixty seconds.

_Let’s make them count._


End file.
